Corruption:

Special criminal court grills Messengue Avom for over 5hrs

By Sylvanus Ezieh in Yaounde

 

Bernard Messengue Avom

President Biya may actually have gone offensive in the fight against corruption if recent developments towards that direction are anything to go by. The former minister of public works, Bernard Messengue Avom was yesterday Thursday grilled by the special police corps of the Special Criminal Court, SCC for over five hours. He arrived the police station at exactly 11 a.m. and only got out at 4:30 p.m.

The Guardian Post does not yet have the exact facts under which he was being grilled, but reputable sources say the former public works minister’s grilling at SCC may be connected to a racket worth 15.4 BFCFA uncovered by the National Anti Corruption Commission, NACC in its 2010 corruption report but published in November 2011.

Going by the NACC report, the ministry of public works had attempted to induce government into paying triple for the Ayos-Bonis road construction project that had already been completed and paid for.

The road project was financed with funds from the Kuwait Economic Development Fund, the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa and the public investment budget of Cameroon. The report stated that the ministry of public works then headed by Bernard Messengue Avom with the approval of the services of the prime ministry, were caught hands-in-the-bag in a suspicious operation.

 Later on November 25, 2011, then vice prime minister, minister of justice, Amadou Ali declared at the national assembly that President Biya had ordered investigations in the alleged racket in the construction of the Ayos-Bonis road that links the Douala, N’djamena in Chad and Douala- Bangui in the Central African corridors.

In reaction to the report, Messengue Avom in a press release said the Anti-corruption Commission did not inform the public works ministry of its report nor invite officials of the ministry to explain the facts observed by the mission.
“This is in violation of the principle of full hearing in force in such circumstances. Yet, this principle of full hearing is in common practice and its non-observance leads to the nullity of any proceedings.” Avom had stated in reaction to the CONAC report. He then requested that an international consulting firm be hired through international tender to carry out a technical and financial auditing on the alleged embezzlement scandal.